Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

Just to be perfectly clear, I don't write off entire outlets. OTOH, I am critical of individual writers. If they say something I know isn't true, I'm going to be skeptical of their other claims.

Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than led astray. Especially considering the media's proven dishonesty during the last election.

Lana, you're not really gonna try to defend the lugenpresse / fake news thing are you? That is all a product of Donald Trump's deranged mind. And even then I would prefer "dishonest media" to the squealings and squawking of the right wing's army of idiots.

I don't buy into the Amnesia Effect - especially when its just fucking WoW nerdwad terminology.

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

Just to be perfectly clear, I don't write off entire outlets. OTOH, I am critical of individual writers. If they say something I know isn't true, I'm going to be skeptical of their other claims.

Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than led astray. Especially considering the media's proven dishonesty during the last election.

Gell-Mann amnesia is about messing up a causal relationship or otherwise showing that you don't understand even the basics about an issue. Confusing the factions in WoW is a superficial error if the writer has otherwise understood the causal relationship correctly.

As an example I confused fission with fusion in the essay part of a physics exam in high school. I explained each process 100% accurately except getting these terms the wrong way around. My teacher gave me an almost perfect score from the essay but according to your logic he should have given me 0 points.

Another mistake in the Buzzfeed glossary is saying that Discord is for "far right groups", it's just an IM/Voice chat app for gamers. So yes there would be a presence of far right people, but there's also a far left (for example, Communist) presence on the site as well, same goes for moderates or even apolitical people. Buzzfeed (like much of the media these days) seems to have a knee-jerk reaction to certain new platforms for communication or activities and are prone to start moral panics. This isn't anything new, the Christians back in the 80s made a big deal about how the local D & D dungeonmasters would turn your teenagers into Satanist Liberals, the left is capable of this same fearmongering.